comedy of dunces, my thoughts

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2006/03/31/midmorning2/

~To be written about later, when I am not at work~

V for Vendetta, and IPods!

Here goes the Semi Traditional Sunday Weekly Blog Post

First off, I really like my IPod. I bought it last week at the Best Buy in St. Cloud, in which trip I spent way too much money, but now I have an IPod, so now I don't have to listen to MPR talk radio anymore (but I will, its great stuff). Now, I'm regretting getting the smaller 1 GB variety, but its OK- the 1 GB hold something like 6 albums, and its pretty easy to add and remove songs. I also like the podcasts. Its going to be great listening to them on my way to and from work, and I even found a radio transmitter that will play on any FM radio station on any frequency at Wal-Mart.

Let see, on other news, I went to see the movie "V for Vendetta". It was interesting, and a little scary. Basically, the plot was that its Britain, fifty or so years in the future, a virus gets out, allows a super conservative religious zealot to win the next election, and then the country turns to a dictatorship and the guy named V goes and saves it. The reason I found it scary was that there was a lot of truth in the story. I found if very much parallel to what was happening today. People are afraid, they let some of their rights go away for extra protection, and soon there are no rights left. In essence, it was Phantom of the Opera meets Batman meets world after Terrorism.

Of course, this was just a movie, based off a comic book, and an action movie, but movies will often parallel what's happening in the real world, whether it is intentional or not.

Oh yeah, I've got pictures to post, but since I havn't found the cord for my camera yet, you won't be seeing any in awhile.

Also, heres a quick weather update. Its still cold, say 40 degrees, and windy, but the snow is melting, the birds are singing, and there is nothing but blue sky!

The Way Things Go

Its been officially 5 weeks that I've been living in Montevideo. Not a very long time, but its a hard community to get to know, partly because it's cold out, partly because I'm so drained from work that on weekends, all I want to do is sleep, play with the cats, and watch movies.

It's hard moving, to a place that doesn't have much. It has a small grocery store that provides a lot of foods you wouldn't find in similiar sized stores, but the prices are expensive, and you need to buy vegetables on the right day, otherwise its luck of the draw. The coffeeshop is the only alternative place to hang out at night besides the bars, and they often times have music and stuff at night. I havn't checked out the music yet, but I plan to, soon.

For things like clothes or electronics, I have to travel to Wilmar, which is 4o miles away, or order it online. This place is very family oriented too, mostly families, not a lot of single people. A lot of it is my own fault, I don't really want to go out and meet anyone. It will take a few months for me to figure out what I'm doing, and adjust to it. It takes a few months to adjust to any new job, so I'm not too worried. If the weekends were three days, instead of two life would be slightly different. By sunday afternoon I finally start getting restless enough to want to go out, but I have to work the next day... so thats the end of that.

As for the job, it goes. I'm not too interested in it yet, but that might change. Its a large change, from moving to a place that has everything, to a place that has everything forty minutes or two hours away. Its partly that I'm going to spend the first year fixing mistakes, and my guess is that as I look at the data, I will be spending more than a few years doing that. I'm guessing every data set we produced for our counties in the last five years will need major fixing. Thats like 20 projects worth (I haven't looked at all the data, just guessing based on how the first four sets of data looked). It completely blows my mind. The state of this data sets are unethical. If I could, I would just throw out everything from the last five years, and start with a clean slate, but thats won't work.

The other thing is the place I'm living in. Its the cleanest apartment I've lived in, but its also the most soulless, and while the neighbors are quiet, for the most part, apartment building living is really not me. Now I could probably get a house with a mortgage of less than what I'm paying now, but I think for now, I'm going to look into renting a house. Something where I can put in a garden, and let the cats hang out in. I live in a bottom apartment, where the windows look onto parking lot. they've adjusted, but I feel like I'm not giving them enough to be completely happy. But, I didn't have to sign a lease, and I payed an incredibly small deposit, so when I find the right place to live, I can do it easily.

Anyway, thats my thoughts for the week!

Dubai Deal, and American Mob Mentality

For the first time, I actually agree with the President. It's a little scary actually, there are chills running up and down my spine. What did I agree with him about? The Dubai deal. The company who wants to manage the American ports have a very good track record at managing ports in other places. They manage the ports, not control security. They are also not the ones who decide what goes in or out of the ports, so its not a security risk. End of Story, except that, millions of Americans think it is. All they needed to hear was "Arab" and it sends them screaming to thier elected representitive, who now have to seem in opposition of the deal, and even go so far as to bring in a Bill to stop it.

Now I beleive that the president is right. By making such a stink about it, it gives the impression that America is bigoted, and in this case it is right. So, a few terrorists came from the United Arab Emirates, but what about the terroist from the United States, or the one from Great Britain? A few bad people do not make a country bad. I think that this Dubai Port Authority thing is going to make matters worst. Where, before we could say, its not Moslim countries we hate, its the terroists that come from them, and see, we allow companies from your country to run our ports, just like we allowed a British company to do so, now we have shown to the Arab world that yes, America really does hate Moslims, and will do anything to get rid of them.

Anyway, thats my rantings for the night.

In Memorium of a Childhood Hero

Today, the Great Baseball Player, Kirby Puckett Died. Twins Baseball was a part of my life when I was a kid. I was in second grade when the Twins, along with Kirby Puckett and others won the world series. It was a such a big deal... I was so excited that they made it. Kirby Puckett was the star. I'm sure that Kent Hrbeck, Frank Viola, and others were just as much stars as Kirby was, but its Mr. Puckett that I remember the most. I know after that first World Series, my second grade class teacher, Mrs. Mensing, had us draw a picture of our favorite play in the World Series. I drew Kirby PUckett hitting a triple slam. Yes, I know, he never did that, but I was 8 and triple slams were about the most exciting thing that could happen in baseball, and Kirby Pucket was the best player, so it worked in my head. You always hear about the games from the golden age, with Babe Ruth, and Lou Gherig and how it was the golden time of Baseball. For me, the summer of my second grade, I never missed a baseball game.

Wikipedia Entry on the 1987 World Series Game

The Trials and Tribulations of Replacing a Nut

In my defense of not writing once a week my nifty, small readership blog, I was busy with work. Let me tell how it goes. The previous guy was an idiot. Not only did he allow his company to pay for a $1,500 dollar software license he never used, he also allowed them to pay for a Internet map program that he never used which I forgot how much the license cost, but its spendy.

He left the data in such a way as so nobody knows how to find it, and where the most recent edition of the data is. He left data on: 1 server, the harddrive of his computer, and the harddrive of another computer, in different states of completeness.

He used outdated programs, when he had better on his computer, and used outdated techniques for creating data.

He did not leave a list of projects to be finished, and where the data is for them, or any information about his techniques- and then, he has the balls to walk in, on a Friday night, at 5:00 pm, after I spent all day remaking his stupid maps for a comprehensive county plan that needs to be done on Monday, and attempts to answer my questions. By this time, I was pissed. I wanted to leave early, seeing as how I spent two nights before staying late. I was not feeling so good, after about three questions, and three whiney answers, I said, I'm leaving, and walked out. Stupid Idiot. I've never liked someone based on thier data management scheme before, and now that I met him, I like him even less.